Editor’s Note: We hope that this piece will provide food for thought as we approach International Holocaust Remembrance Day next Friday, January 27.
by Burt Michaels, Class of 2019
I’ve read how forthrightly Berlin faces its historic crimes, and wondered if their Holocaust architecture represents sincere atonement, or is a ploy to attract tourists
So I went to see. Two structures in particular convinced me that at least official Germany confronts their history with a degree of honesty that would upend how we in the USA deal with our state-sponsored crimes against Native and Black people.
The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe opened in 2005—fifty years after the murders. Atonement came not from the criminals, but from their descendants. Designed by the Jewish-American architect Peter Eisenman, its epic scope and prime location astound: football-fields of undulating concrete blocks surrounded by the historic Brandenburg Gate; the city’s main park; the Reichstag; and upscale shops and hotels.
Picture this: instead of the Cultural Center and the Garland Building, a memorial to enslaved people and their descendants stretching between Randolph and Washington, from Michigan to Wabash.
Even more astonishing is the Topography of Terror (a.k.a. “Perpetrators Museum”) where the Gestapo and SS headquarters stood. Begun in 1987, the final version, designed by Ursula Wilms, opened in 2010.
Again, the scale and site are mind-blowing, but here the content is explicit rather than symbolic. A huge greystone plaza–where the Berlin Wall stood–overlooks an open-air exhibition in a trench, with remnants of both the Wall and the Gestapo headquarters exposed. Beyond the trench a stark, one-story rectangle clad in perforated metal houses a larger exhibition.
The exhibitions detail how the Nazi security apparatuses seized power and exercised terror, before, during, and long after WWII. The tone is clinical. Parallels to today’s U.S. abound: The Nazis banned abortion as soon as they took power. They were also grifters, selling their fans shoddy Nazi-themed tchotchkes and phony investment schemes. They also obsessed over performance, with elaborately-staged hate rallies.
Remarkably, the exhibits remain laser-focused on the perpetrators. They could have sought ways to exonerate their forbearers, to confound perpetrators and victims. They could have included the bombing of German cities, or their oppression under the Soviets. And they do not.
Picture: a museum detailing the displacement of Native Americans running from Pearson to Chicago, from behind the MCA to Michigan Avenue.
Contrast Vienna. Their Monument to the Victims of War and Fascism, from 1988, also sits on a prime site. Its scale, however, suggests “meh.” And its content? The sculptures literally include a Nazi soldier among the victims; a Jew in a humiliating position; and the rebirth of the Austrian republic. Amazingly, the plaque describing the memorial lacks two key words—Nazi and Jew. It’s a revisionist rewriting of history, a denial of past crimes, comparable to the “Lost Cause” version of the “War of Northern Aggression.”
Months after our trip, I read ”Monuments to the Unthinkable” by Clint Smith in the December, 2022 Atlantic. He writes, “America still can’t figure out how to memorialize the sins of our history.” Then he asks, “What can we learn from Germany?”
I’d say, “a lot.”
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Very interesting–thank you!
Thank you, Burt, for this thought-provoking piece.
So very powerful: travel exposes history. Thank you, Burt, for sharing the photos, the narrative but most importantly your comparisons. Suzy Ruder
I echo Suzy’s comment.
Burt, Wow! Thoughtful, thought provoking, profound!
Thank you Burt. I have also visited both Berlin and Vienna and also felt there was a profound difference in the way they dealt with their history.
Thank you, Burt! I visited the places in Berlin. I volunteered in Israel alongside several young Christian Germans who were overwhelmed by their collective history and were volunteering in Israel to deal with their demons. Thank goodness for these wonderful young people who are not deniers and who are creating better relations with their fellow people. Thanks for your article and pictures.
Burt,
Excellent article. The Jewish Museum is another architectural gem focusing on Jews in German history and the Holocaust in a building designed by Daniel Liebskind, son of Holocaust survivors. The day we visited this museum German high school groups were touring. This is now a requirement in the German schools. So the architecture is helping with education.
Thank you,
Bill Lipsman